New NBC show Dracula

[deltasigma]

Here is the Metacritic link - 14 positive, 12 mixed, 6 negative.

[ul]
[li] Summary: This 10-episode take on Bram Stoker’s classic novel is set in Victorian-era London, where Dracula (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) forms an unlikely alliance with Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann) to take down a shady criminal organization called the Order of the Dragon. [/li][li]Genre(s): Drama, Fantasy, Horror[/li][/ul]

[Trinopus]

19th century vampire with 20/21st century haircut…

[GuanoLad]

Anachronisms ahoy. But it was decent fun.

[SeaDragonTattoo]

I dig Rhys Meyers, so I’ll give the next episode a shot, but thought the premier was a little slow.

[twickster]

Wanted to like it, but just couldn’t get into it.

[Poysyn]

I’ll try one, maybe two more, but the first one didn’t grab me.

[Hockey_Monkey]

Wait, there was a plot? I was too busy looking at Jonathan Rhys Meyers. drool

[deltasigma]

I have to admit that I’m a fan of the crusading vampire genre. I think the first vamp show I ever saw was Forever Knight, which gives you some idea of just how low I’m willing to go for anything falls under the rubric of sci-fi/fantasy. Not that the show didn’t have its moments but the constant grating angst even got to me after a while. And then there was the series finale and episodes leading up to it which I’d prefer to forget.

But back on topic. The pairing with Van Helsing seems like quite a departure, although I have to admit that I’m not sufficiently familiar with vamp lore to fully appreciate just how much. I would imagine that his sacrificing some poor slob to resurrect Vlad must do some injustice to traditional portrayals though.

I was also intrigued by the flashbacks to Vlad’s lover and apparently current incarnation in the person of Mina Murray(?). I’m interested to see how that plays out. Is this going to be some form of reincarnation, which I’m betting against personally. Was she somehow rescued from being burned at the stake and turned, but then why would she have no memory of the event?

However as to the latter, I’m not ruling that out since a quick search on the order of the dragon reveals this summary, in part, from wikipedia.

The Order flourished during the first half of the 15th century, primarily in Germany and Italy. After Sigismund’s death in 1437, its importance declined in Western Europe, but after the Fall of Constantinople of 1453, it continued to play a role in Hungary including Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania, which bore the brunt of the Ottoman incursions.
Vlad Țepeș, the figure who inspired Dracula, was a member of the Order, as well as his father, Vlad II Dracul.

So while Vlad seems to have been a member of the Order, it seems that they are nonetheless mortal enemies. So is this the writers taking liberties with history or is there some deeper “truth” they intend to reveal.

[Stoid]

Dracula as liberal crusader / Victorian Jobs, intent upon bringing the latest in technological marvels to the masses…for free…thereby foiling the greatest tool Satan’s Minions have ever wielded: Capitalism.

Well…okay! Let’s go for it!

[deltasigma]

Not capitalism. Greed is good. Oil is evil.

[Stoid]

@deltasigma

Not capitalism. Greed is good. Oil is evil.

Then why free?

[deltasigma]

Yeah, that wasn’t clear. My first impulse is to say that you’d still need to generate the electricity the only difference is the distribution mechanism. But then I guess you have to think back to where he was talking about the compass and saying it was the same principle as the geomagnetic force as the one that moved the compass needle. Or at least I think that’s what he said. So in short, I really have no idea.

edit: I imagine there will be a fair amount of hand waving but if I remember some of the history around Edison, he was pretty ruthless regarding competitors so hopefully we’ll hear more about that conflict.

[AK84]

Liked it. Needs more tits and less abs.

[simster]

@Stoid

Then why free?

Free was to destroy the ‘order of the dragon’ financially -

[control-z]

I thought it was very boring but I will probably give it one more shot.

[deltasigma]

Since shows I like tend to get canceled (yeah, no accounting for taste, bite me) I decided to see what the rating were like and found this from the Hollywood Reporter.

NBC unveiled its new Friday block last night with the return of Grimm and the launch of Dracula at 10 p.m. Fast National returns give the freshman series a 1.8 rating with adults 18-49 and 5.3 million viewers. The network’s first scripted push into the hour in some time, it won the hour in the demo and held 100 percent of its lead-in. Grimm (1.8 adults) was up two-tenths from last fall’s Friday return (1.6 adults). Dateline (1.3 adults) started the night, even from last week’s two-hour episode, giving NBC a winning 1.6 rating among adults 18-49 for the night and 5.8 million viewers.

I’ve never watched Grimm but that looks interesting so I’ll have to check that out. Anyway, I guess this was designed expressly to complement that series without being a spinoff.

The thing is, I have no idea what the ratings mean and I was wondering if someone could explain what things like 1.8 and 1.6 mean. I did find this on Nielsen ratings from Wikipedia

Share is the percentage of television sets in use tuned to the program. For example, Nielsen may report a show as receiving a 9.2/15 during its broadcast, meaning that on average 9.2 percent of all television-equipped households were tuned in to that program at any given moment, while 15 percent of households watching TV were tuned into that program during this time slot. The difference between rating and share is that a rating reflects the percentage of the total population of televisions tuned to a particular program while share reflects the percentage of televisions actually in use.[3]

So I’m guessing that 1.8 in the quote above means 1.8% of the 5.3M viewers in the cited demo. Does that sound right, because that doesn’t strike me as being all that positive.

[Stoid]

@simster

Free was to destroy the ‘order of the dragon’ financially -

Then I stick with my first interpretation…

[Minnie_Luna]

@Hockey_Monkey

Wait, there was a plot? I was too busy looking at Jonathan Rhys Meyers. drool

He is the reason I tuned it. I liked it, but I found his american accent a little “off”. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it bugged me.

[simster]

@Stoid

Then I stick with my first interpretation…

well, his goal is to bring down the order of dragon - who are apparently ‘big oil’ - this particular invention is ‘free’ because it will do just that (stated by the dragons at the event even) - the rest of his goals are capitalistic or unstated.

[deltasigma]

@Minnie_Luna

He is the reason I tuned it. I liked it, but I found his american accent a little “off”. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it bugged me.

I’ve noticed that w/ a lot with UK actors trying to play Americans. They seem to go for Midwestern accents that are solidly in fly-over country like Nebraska or Oklahoma and always overdo it. I think it’s the vowel sounds, especially how ‘a’ is pronounced.